Reports on ranks of states. How healthy are the states in India?
Healthy States Progressive India
Among the Larger States, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana emerged among the best three
performers in terms of Overall Performance. Uttar Pradesh with the lowest Overall Reference Year
(2019-20) Index Score ranked at the bottom (Rank 19) in Overall Performance, however, it ranked at the
top in terms of Incremental Performance by registering the highest incremental change from the Base
Year (2018-19) to Reference Year (2019-20). On the other hand, Kerala and Tamil Nadu were the top two
performers in terms of Overall Performance with the highest Reference Year (2019-20) Index Scores but
ranked twelfth and eighth respectively in terms of Incremental Performance. Telangana performed well
both in terms of Overall Performance as well as Incremental Performance and secured the third position in
both instances. For the fourth consecutive round, Kerala emerged as the best performer in terms of Overall
Performance. Among the Smaller States, Mizoram emerged as the best performer in Overall Performance
as well as Incremental Performance while among UTs, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir ranked among the
bottom UTs in terms of Overall Performance but emerged as the leading performer in terms of Incremental
Performance
Overall Performance
In Reference Year (2019-20), Kerala and Tamil Nadu occupied the first and second ranks, with Overall
Performance Scores of 82.20 and 72.42 respectively. Kerala has been the top ranking Larger State in
all the four rounds of the Health Index. Among the Larger States, only four states improved their Base
Year (2018-19) rank in the Reference Year (2019-20). Ten states including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,
Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh retained their rank
(indicated by yellow lines, Figure 2.1), while four states improved their rankings from Base Year (2018-19) to
Reference Year (2019-20) (indicated by green lines). Telangana improved its position from fourth to third, Gujarat
from seventh to sixth, and Punjab from ninth to eighth. The most significant progress was observed in Assam
as it improved its ranking by three positions, from fifteenth to twelfth. On the contrary, five states observed a
decline in their ranking from Base Year (2018-19) to Reference Year (2019-20) (indicated by red lines). Odisha
had the steepest decline of two positions, while the ranking of Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka
and Uttarakhand declined by one position each.
The Health Index Score for the Reference Year (2019-20) revealed wide disparities in Overall
Performance across the Larger States. Among the 19 Larger States, the Overall Performance Score of the
best-performing state was about 2.7 times of the least-performing state. Kerala continued to champion
the Larger States with an Overall Performance Score of 82.20, while Uttar Pradesh was the least performing
state with an Overall Performance Score of 30.57. Compared to the Base Year (2018-19), the gap between
the best performing Larger State and the least performing Larger State has narrowed down in the Reference
Year (2019-20).
Despite good performance, even the best performing states have significant room for improvement
as the highest observed Overall Index Score was 82.20 for Kerala which is some distance from the
frontier (maximum potential score is 100). The lowest Index Score is 30.57 for Uttar Pradesh preceded by
Bihar (31.00), Madhya Pradesh (36.72) and Rajasthan (41.33). This clearly indicates that there is a scope for
improvement for all Larger States, including the best performing states, to reach the potential score of 100.
Fifty percent of the Larger States did not even reach the halfway mark in terms of the Composite Index Score
for Overall Performance and there is an urgent need to accelerate efforts to narrow the performance gap
between the states
